“And she refuses to marry you now?”
“She married Harold Wynne an hour ago.”
Helen Craven did not fling herself about when she heard this piece of news. She only sat very rigid on her little sofa.
“Yes,” resumed Edmund. “She is ill-treated by one man, but she marries him, and revenges herself upon another! Isn’t that like a woman? She has ruined my career.”
Then it was that Helen Craven burst into a long, loud, and very unmusical laugh—a laugh that had a suspicion of a shrill shriek about some of its tones. When she recovered, her eyes were full of the tears which that paroxysm of laughter had caused.
“You are a fool, indeed!” said she. “You are a fool if you cannot see that your career is just beginning. People are talking of you to-day as the Conscientious One—the One Man with a Conscience. Isn’t the reputation for a Conscience the beginning of success in England?”
“Helen,” he cried, “will you marry me? With our combined money we can make ourselves necessary to any party. Will you marry me?”
“I will,” she said. “I will marry you with pleasure—now. I will marry anyone—now.”
“Give me your hand, Helen,” he cried. “We understand one another—that is enough to start with. And as for that other—oh, she is nothing but a woman after all!”
He never spoke truer words.